1. Finding the MFs
I took a three step approach to finding members of the Folketing on Twitter. Starting with list of MFs from the Folketing website on 7.1.12 (including 3 substitute members, making the total 182), I first used Google.dk to search for the name of the MF’s name and ‘Twitter’. If this revealed no name I then searched Twitter using the ‘Suggest People’ function. And as a final check I scanned Danish Twitter users’ lists to ensure no MF was missed. The 85 MFs I found on Twitter are now on this Twitter list of my own. The 97 not on Twitter are listed at the end of this post.

2. Elimination of small and inactive accounts
The threshold to include an account in the study was that the account has written at least 100 tweets. Less than this and it is impossible to gauge how an account will develop. This eliminated a further 38 MFs, all listed below. A further 5 accounts were eliminated because no tweets had been produced in the last 30 days, and 4 more accounts are feeds of news from Facebook only and were also removed. This leaves a total of 38 active MFs on Twitter.

3. Results table
The table below lists the 38 active MFs on Twitter, organised by number of followers. * denotes a Minister. The three columns at the right end are the interesting ones – the Klout score (out of 100) is an automated measure of online influence, based on interactions between users on Twitter, and these users’ respective influence. Reply of RT (out of 10) is my subjective view on how likely a user is to engage with others by replying or RTing. Pol(itical) insight (out of 10) is my subjective view on what can be learned from the tweets – think @carlbildt as the standard for a score of 10.

4. Insights – individualsThe undoubted leader of the pack is @Vestager. With more than twice as many followers as the second-ranked politician, and with a friendly, interactive style and plenty of photos, there is a lot other Danish politicians could learn from her.

Next come the communicative ministers – @IdaAuken, @ManuSareen and @Oestergaard. Particularly Auken and Østergaard are ready to reply to questions posed on Twitter, but none of the three have really developed their own style. Development Minister Friis Bach @christianfbach remains well behind the others, not really engaging on Twitter yet.

The conversationalists are regular MFs who reach out and discuss politics and plenty of other things besides. Here the leading character is Stine Brix (@smbrix), followed by Sofie Carsten Nielsen (@sofiecn), Pernille Skipper (@PSkipperEL), Benny Engelbrecht (@BennyEngelbrech), Magnus Heunicke (@Heunicke) and Jeppe Mikkelsen (@JeppeMikkelsen). All of these accounts allow a Twitter user to relate to the politician as a person, and replies and RTs are likely from these accounts.

The opposition ranks are led by Ellen Trane Nørby (@EllenTraneNorby) and Søren Pind (@sorenpind), both of whose tweets can have an edge to them, but with rather few tweets so far it is unclear how these accounts will develop. Among the smaller accounts, Rosa Lund (@RosaLundEl) and Rasmus Horn Langhoff (@rasmushorn) have had some reasonable, while Simon Kollerup (@simonkollerup) and Nikolaj Villumsen (@nvillumsen) could develop into conversationalists.

5. Insights – partiesRadikale Venstre, led by Vestager, beats all other parties hands down – almost all the party’s MFs are present on Twitter, and 4 of the other top accounts also come from that party. All other parties are a long way behind. The two large parties – Socialdemokraterne and Venstre – are largely absent from Twitter, with the @larsloekke account being dormant a rather surprising choice by Venstre’s communications team. None of the Socialdemokraterne’s leading figures (including the Prime Minister) are in any way active on Twitter. Meanwhile among the other parties Enhedslisten is a fraction ahead of the rest with Brix and Skipper, SF really has only Auken, and Liberal Alliance, Dansk Folkeparti and Konservative have a sprinkling of MFs.

6. Suggestions for improvement
No Danish politicians, not even Vestager, get close to the gold standard of European politicians on Twitter set by the likes of @carlbilbt, @alexstubb, @NeelieKroesEU and @jensstoltenberg. Vestager, with 2866 tweets the most active MF at the time of writing, is almost 2000 short of Stubb’s total. Content builds engagement, and engagement builds a following on the network – too few Danish politicians have understood that.

Among the ranks of the normal MFs, too many accounts are poorly designed (poor pictures, no cover or background image), and a number do not even have biographies or web URLs. Not everyone can name all MFs, so the starting point to gain a following is to make a clear statement of who you are and what you do. Further, only 2 MFs follow more than 1000 people, and many follow less than 100. Twitter is a two-way network, it is about learning from and conversing with others, and far too few MFs seem to be in listening mode. This could be a question of technology, and a lack of understanding of Twitter lists.

Critics may say that all of this is inevitable in Denmark, where Twitter remains under developed and the Danish language Twittersphere is small. But conversely how better as an up-and-coming politician to develop a role and a reputation using Twitter? Danish journalists, academics and bloggers are increasingly taking to Twitter – what are aspiring MFs waiting for?

NOTE: a first draft of this post incorrectly stated Stine Brix was a member of SF. She is in Enhedslisten. This has been corrected. Thanks @leoparddrengen for pointing this out! In return he asks me to point out his guide to Twitter in Danish. Fair deal I reckon!

16 Comments

Facebook is by far the most important and widespread social media in Denmark. The penetration is in the upper nineties of all internet users in general. No other social network service is close to that penetration and it has been quite a puzzle. One school of thought attributes this to the previous slow expansion of mobile communications and poor mobile broadband in Denmark compared to other countries like Holland or Sweden. In those countries, other social network services like Twitter and Google+ are used with much more frequency. And even now, when mobile broadband is developing rapidly, people have already made Facebook their primary mobile social network with more than 2 million users in Denmark.

Regarding the discussions on Facebook, they are often very vibrant indeed. The tension may differ depending on which politician you study, but it is often regardless of the number of followers or party affiliation. Sometime the issues are from the general list of political topics, sometimes they regard process and personal issues, and often they have local perspective.

An interesting discussion has been made about the diminishing party memberships versus the mediatization of politics in Denmark. Some suggest that the development is a reflection of the increased professionalization of the party officials and the diffusion of political agendas through various media outlets in Denmark. It seems that the increased use of social media it becomes possible to connect to even better with the local constituents without the old large local party machines.

As for Twitter, it is by many (politicians) regarded as not elitist, but to some extend pointless since the interaction with the voters is already in play on Facebook. Some of the politicians use Twitter for surfacing ideas and proposals, others as a strategic tool for communicating with the press. And quite a few may have an account but never or rarely use it.

There is movement, however slowly, for members of Folketinget towards embracing it. In 2010, 34 members of Folketinget used Twitter. In 2012, it had risen to 89.

A good example is Dansk Folkeparti, where zero members used Twitter in 2010 compared to 6 in 2012. It seems that the members were inspired by Morten Messerschmidt, @MrMesserschmidt, using Twitter to discus danish politics – and the European Union – from Bruxelles.

As you suggested in your original post, we still have a long way to go. One of the core problems is a lack of understanding of the possibilities other types of social media have to offer. For now, there is no apparent reason for being on Twitter.

No, you probably have a point there. But most people will follow a newspaper or a radio show and perhaps also a politician and a political party if they are very interested.

The problem is making the topics and issues tangible, because people do have lots of opinions. Somehow the P3 radio station manages to have lots of discussion on their facebook pages. Before then they were quick to introduce interactivity via SMS, so the listeners are used to being an integral part of the discussion.

I see where you want to go, but I doubt the development in DK will go very fast. Since it is Margrethe Vestager leading up the field it probably also means that the “creative class” are the only ones to really embrace twitter. Meaning that it is somewhat elitist.

More or less everybody in Denmark is on Facebook meaning that this is where the audience is. But if Barroso can do it, why not Helle?

@Anne – yes, this perception that Twitter is elitist won’t go away soon in Denmark due to the order that people seem to have joined – journalists seem to have taken to it before ‘normal’ people have, so it could end up being even more of an echo chamber than it has become in the UK. But conversely look at Netherlands that has an excellent social media environment across lots of channels. That’s the level to aspire to.

As for Facebook – yes, lots of people might be on it, but are the tools actually good for political debate? Because the average number of pages someone likes is 9.8 – i.e. meaning no-one is going to be debating all the MFs there. I wonder whether, when looking behind the numbers, how vibrant it actually will be?

@Anne – you’re not the first person to suggest that, but no. Part of the aim of this blog post was to encourage more debate on Twitter. While I still have a profile on Facebook I am no fan of the site or its business practices, hence I am not keen to drive even more political discussion there. Plus it would take so damned long to do such research that I am not going to do it unless someone would pay me to do so!

@Steve – that relationship is definitely weaker in Denmark, so you’re right to say that partly influences things. And it might also explain some of the activity on Twitter in Enhedslisten that are the closest MFs to their activists.

I don’t reject the personal stuff – indeed far from it. But conversely an account from a politician that only has that would also be a bit off.

There is something rather retro about the whole comms environment in DK politics – low Twitter use is just one aspect of it.

A useful analysis. A thought/question: how much contact is there normally between a Danish MP and their constituents? Weekly surgeries? Do MPs spend a fair amount of the weekend at local events? Do MPs act as a local fixer for constituents against local government/welfare departments poor administration etc or on local planning issues? UK MPs for example as you know are often more social workers than legislators so being active on twitter is an obvious avenue. Personal tweets are also effective . I don’t dismiss them as quickly as you do.
I find in countries where a party list system is used there is not the same voter/representative personal relationship. For the parliamentarian keeping in with the powers in the party is more important. But overall I’m still surprised at the lack of Danish MP tweeting.

Hi Jon, an interesting analysis. There are also a couple of members of the European Parliament on Twitter. Both @Dan_joergensen and @MrMesserschmidt use Twitter as a way of communicate. I also believe that Morten Løkkegaard and Jens Rohde is there somewhere 🙂 Thanks for the post.

@Kristian – Thanks for the comment. Yes, I’m aware of those, and Bendt Bendtsen starting off as well. But for the study I had to draw the line somewhere, and limiting it to the Folketing was one of those limits. Sometime close to the EP elections 2014 I will have a go at an equivalent study of MEPs, possibly also from other countries.

Fascinating stuff – but I am a little worried about the element of time in all of this. If politicians spend all their waking hours tweeting the world more or less at random, when are they going to find the time to concentrate on their work? I would probably rather vote for somebody who spent more time time concentrating on the job at hand than on keeping the tweet-o-sphere updated every waking second. But maybe that’s just me….

@henrik – it depends how its done. The advantage of Twitter (as opposed to blogging, Facebook) is that each tweet is so short it’s easy to find time for that alongside everything else. Further, we do not question the time politicians spend talking to journalists, and if Twitter gives them a more direct way to communicate with people, then why not? What’s your definition of “concentrating on the job”? And would you vote for them if you did not know what they had done?

@Troels – I got asked about this on Twitter, and indeed in the post about European Commissioners. First of all it’s worth saying that it’s extremely subjective – it’s how I interpret things. I cannot give you a list of set criteria. But genuine political content – either being tough with a critique of an opponent, or going into depth in a discussion of a political point, scores highly. Just tweeting out the party line, or bland headlines, does not. Equally just tweeting about personal stuff is also no good.

The challenge then comes with accounts – like @vestager – that mix a bit of all of these. If there is good political content in there somewhere, this will tend to trump the other aspects.

Twitter overall in Denmark has some way to go, but even taking that as a given I think the political environment has a lot of room for improvement, even within the relatively under-developed Danish Twitter environment. It’s not as if the Norwegian or Finnish twitterspheres are full of life either, but there are a few more stand-out politicians there at least.

Re. Sass Larsen – thanks! I’ll add a note next to him (although as that account had tweeted so little I didn’t analyse it anyway).

I have a question regarding your Pol score, since it isn’t very clear as to how you calculate its value. If possible, could you please share the logic behind this score?

Furthermore, your headline reads Danish politics has a long way to go. Do you conclude that because the number of politicians using Twitter is limited – or how they use it – or is it because Twitter usage in Denmark is limited? Or maybe both?

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